glabrous; stolons short, clothed by pale-brown lanceolate striate scales 1/2 in. long, hardening into a short rhizome; stems 4–16 in. long, slender, approximate on the rhizome, not divided above the rhizome, each with 1 head; leaves usually 3/4 the length of the stem, often 1/10 in. broad (not narrower than in the next species); nodes all close to the base of the stem; leaf-sheaths not torn (stouter than in Eu-Ficinia), but some examples show few leaves and those not 1/3 the length of the stem; bracts 2–3, similar to the leaves, lowest up to 2 in. long, dilated (or very little dilated) at the base; spikelets 1/2 by 1/8– 1/6 in., 1–7 clustered subdigitately, compressed, 8–14-flowered, chestnut or leaden-grey; flower-glumes distant, nearly distichous, uppermost (as indeed in Cyperus) going off into a spire; glumes ovate, obtuse, scarious-edged; stamens 3; anthers linear; crest very small, lanceolate, scabrous, white; nut about 1/3 the length of the glume, ellipsoid, trigonous, smooth, dull-black, outermost cells very minute, subquadrate; style much shorter than the nut, filiform, branches 3 linear, long; gynophore obconic, small margin with 3 oblong lobes.This species, with the two following closely allied ones, forms a very natural group; but the flowers are so exactly those of Eu-Ficinia that it is not convenient to treat the group as a genus, on habit only, after Bentham has thrown the Acrolepis group into Ficinia. null